Track Star
by OnAngelWings
Summary: He was striking out on his own on the swim team. She was breaking records on the runner's circuit. All Percy wanted was her, but all Annabeth could see was the Nationals and her future-instead of the present which he was striving to make perfect. AU, Percabeth.
1. You Again

**A/N NEW STORY! WHO'S EXCITED! I AM! Ahem. Disclaimer: Once I dreamed I owned PJO...then my dog showed up and started singing and I knew I was asleep. Let's kickstart this story in:**

**Chapter One: You Again**

If I had known what I was in for the year Oakwood Academy introduced swimming to their sports roster, I would probably still have joined. That first year was bittersweet from the first day, when only me and the captain showed up, all the way to when the team nearly won the championships only to be DQ'ed at the last possible second for a mistake made months before. But what made my sophomore year at Oakwood hard wasn't the competition; it was my locker neighbor.

Girls are hard to understand, okay? Like, really hard. And the same held true for a certain Miss Annabeth Maia Chase, who had applied just a teensy bit late for the school year and had to have her locker right next to mine, Percy Jackson, since I was on the end of a row, even though that makes exactly no sense for anyone except maybe the guys who made the Dewey Decimal System. They liked to screw around people's brains a lot. Why couldn't she have taken the open locker by Beckendorf, or Malcolm, or, well, anyone but me?

I may never know the answer to that question. But what I remember very clearly about that first day was the poke in my shoulder and a voice from behind me asking if I would be nice and please get out of their way so they could get to their locker. And then I turned around...and saw her.

Gods of Olympus, she was beautiful.

She wasn't pretty in any way, like, the girls in magazines. Her hair was medium length, curly and gold, she was about two inches shorter than me, and her gray eyes seemed to be peering into my soul.

I must have stood there gaping for a minute because she rolled her eyes, shoved me aside, and muttered, "I don't have all day, you know, Mr.."

"Jackson. Percy Jackson."

"Annabeth Chase."

"Well, who's locker are you breaking into?"

The stormy gray gaze locked onto me again, and my confidence began to sputter out like a candle in Niagara Falls. "I mean, your last name is a C. Shouldn't you be over with the other C's then? I'm a J." The last part sounded stupid as it came out of my mouth, and i wanted to take it back immediately.

Annabeth rolled her eyes again and went back to unpacking her backpack. "Late registration, Mr. I'm-a-J. Sadly, they stuck me next to you and I will most likely be dealing with the trauma of this experience for the rest of my life. There, that looks relatively organized, doesn't it?"

I started to answer before I realized that she was talking to a girl who had popped up next to her somehow. The girl tilted her head, making some of the little braids dispersed in her hair fall slightly to the side. She studied the locker interior with eyes that seemed to change color the more I looked at her. "I don't know, Annie. Why don't you add some jewel magnets here, and-"

"Pipes, I'm not looking for an interior decorator here."

The girl shrieked. "ONLY JASON CALLS ME PIPES!"

"Only Luke calls me Annie. We're even." Annabeth closed her locker, and the girl narrowed her eyes at me. "Annabeth-"

"I don't know him, leave it at that." The blonde walked off, leaving me with the other girl. I held out my hand. "Percy Jackson."

"Piper McLean. You new?"

"Yeah, how can you tell?"

Piper laughed. "You were hanging around Annie. You know she has a boyfriend, right?"

"She's in the locker next to me! She came up to me!" I had a feeling it wouldn't help my case to say that I thought my new locker neighbor was supermodel hot.

"Yeah, why is that?"

"Said something about late registration."

She shook her head, still giggling, her chocolate brown hair falling in her face. "Another dumb thing about Oakwood; you have to register for each year separately and apply over and over again. Bur they'd never let Annie go, she's too valuable."

"Why?"

"Almost all of her classes are AP, she's a perfect role model, and she's the captain of our track team. And our track team never loses. Plus, she gets the school lots of positive attention. You wouldn't believe how many times someone has come up to me and said, "Hey, you go to Annabeth Chase's school, right?"

"That girl is an overachiever."

"I'll say." Piper smiled at me. The bell rang. "Ah, no, I'm supposed to be in Science now."

"Hey, can you tell me where the English room is?"

Piper pointed down the hall to a green-painted door. "Right through there. Holler if you're being tortured, kay?"

She vanished into the crowd before I could answer.

I made my way to the English room, books and binder in hand. As I entered the room, I saw a head with long, bobbing blonde hair, and grinned. It turned around, and I saw that I had been right.

As it turns out, Annabeth Chase does not have _all _AP classes.

"You again." She hissed.

I slid easily into the seat right front of her at the desk cluster. "Miss me, _Annie_?"

**A/N FIRST CHAPTER YAY! I've been wanting to write this out for a while, but never had the time to, sadly. Okay, here's what's going down: Annie's going to be a little OOC for a while (so is Percy) JUST BECAUSE IT NEEDS TO START LIKE THAT FOR THE STORY TO WORK. Piper and Jason have NOT gotten together yet (sad right?) but will shortly. I think that pretty much covers it, so PLEASE READ AND REVIEW!**


	2. The Fifteen Questions

**A/N Hi all! I'm still alive, and back with a new chapter! YAY! DISCLAIMER: When I'm asleep I own PJO, because the only place I'd get the rights is in my dreams. :( On with the story, in...**

**Chapter Two: The Fifteen Questions  
**

"What are you doing here?" Annabeth hissed.

"Sitting."

"In my English class?"

"It's not your English class. You're not teaching it or have possession of it. The real question here is why are you here? I thought you were all AP." I leaned back in the desk, smirking.

Annabeth's gray eyes got a shade darker. "None of your damn business." she muttered, then busied herself with opening her binder and pulling out some loose-leaf and a pen. I did the same, parallel to her. The second bell rang and a flood of people came into the room. A boy slid into the seat next to Annabeth. He locked eyes with me. "Hey, are you one of the new guys?"

"Yeah. I'm Percy."

"Jason."

"Cool." I knew I had heard that name somewhere before- Piper. That was it. "Do you know a girl named Piper? She mentioned you earlier."

Jason flushed red, and I heard Annabeth stifle a giggle. "Out of sheer curiosity, what did she say?"

"Uh, that only you call her Pipes?"

The boy relaxed. "Good." Then his gaze switched to something over my shoulder. "Hey, Bianca."

A tall girl with very dark brown hair sat down next to me. "Hi Jason." She didn't even look at me. "Can I borrow some paper, Annabeth? I left mine at home on accident."

"Left it? Are you sure Nico didn't steal it again?" Annabeth asked, handing her some paper.

"I already told him not to." Bianca sounded kind of sad as she said it...actually, more desperate. "Nico used to listen to me." In an obvious effort to redirect the conversation, she turned to me. "Who are you?"

"Percy Jackson."

"Bianca diAngelo."

"Nice to meet you, Bianca."

She actually made eye contact with me this time, and I noticed her eyes were a nice brown, with hints of forest green around the edges. Her eyes smiled.

I smiled back.

Piper was right- the English class was torture. But for me, it was a hundred times worse- I had dyslexia, so all the words swapped places and letters changed and it was awful in general. That was why I usually failed English class: at every single school I went to, the English teachers called me dumb.

I checked my schedule- next class, World History, taught by a Mr. Brunner. Room 3025. I had no idea where Room 3025 was, but I would figure it out. I got out the books form my locker and headed out.

"Hi Percy." Jason joined me in the hallway. "What's your next class?"

"World History. How do you get to the room?"

"Depends. Regular or Honors?"

I looked down at the paper again. "Honors. How did that happen?"

"Go down the hall there-" Jason pointed to one of the many hallways of Oakwood (this place is practically a labyrinth) "-and turn right. It should be right there. Who's your teacher?"

"Mr. Brunner."

Jason smiled. "Oh, boy, you are going to have fun. I had him last year and he is awesome."

"Really?"

"Yeah. We play games, and have weird worksheets- but sadly, still learn stuff. I guess that can't really be avoided..."

He clapped me on the shoulder. "Have fun."

I finally got to the World History classroom just as the second bell rang. Finding a seat near the middle of the room, I set down my stuff and began to take out my notebook.

"Hello class." A man near the front of the room said. "I am Mr. Brunner, and to all of the new students: Welcome to Oakwood Academy!"

There was a murmur of _thank you's_ and scattered clapping in one corner.

"Today we will be doing a worksheet-"

Groans erupted from everywhere.

"- and you will be working in pairs by desk seating." finished Mr. Brunner, beginning to hand them out. The girl in front of me turned around and handed me a worksheet. Her short black hair had bright blue tips, and her electric eyes stared out at me from painted dark eyes.

"So, I guess we'll be working together?" she said, but it was more of a question.

"I guess so. I'm Percy."

"Thalia. What grade are you?"

This question kind of caught me off guard- weren't we all in the same grade here? "Sophomore."

"Junior. Remember, it's an honors class, so there's grade variation. Do you know Jason?"

"Yeah, we talked in English. Why?"

"He's my brother."

"Wow." I couldn't really believe it- Jason and Thalia looked nothing alike. Well, except for the eyes, but even there there was a difference- Jason's were paler blue than Thalia's, which looked like lightning.

I looked at the worksheet and was immediately confused.

Somehow, I could read it perfectly. No changing of words, no mix of letters. It all stayed in one spot.

"What..." I murmured.

_Question 1. What was the Greek Pantheon? List as many as you know below._

_Question 2. Who was the hero Perseus, and what were some of his accomplishments? Bullet points allowed._

_Question 3. Why is the name 'Trojan Horse' an incorrect label?_

This went on until question fifteen, where it reverted to a mess of letters and numbers an complete gibberish, but by the end Thalia and I had worked our way through all forty of them. The bell rang, and we moved on.

But I kept thinking about those fifteen questions at the beginning, and how they weren't like the others. There was something about those fifteen questions that kept bugging me the whole day, up until lunch, when I marched into Mr. Brunner's classroom and asked, "Sir, what was different about the first fifteen questions on the page?"

The man was shocked. "What?"

"The first fifteen questions. There was something weird about them." I didn't want to admit I was dyslexic in front of my teacher.

"You could read that? But it was only meant for the students who took that course!"

"What course?"

Mr. Brunner took a breath. "Those first fifteen questions were written in Greek."

**A/****N Oohhh! What's going on? Oh, wait, I actually already know. What will happen at Percy's first swim practice with the Oakwood Owls (haha I did that on purpose HOOTOWLS FOREVER!) And most importantly- will I ever find my paperback copy of Divergent because I've been looking since I lost it in July?! Please read and review!**


	3. Demigod Club

**A/N Hello! For some unfathomable reason I decided to get up at 6, go to a 7:30 swim practice, and actually stay the whole time. Now I'm half dead, hungry, and have a new chapter! DISCLAIMER: If I had the rights to PJO, WHY WOULD I BE WRITING FANFICTION FOR IT?**

**Chapter 3: Demigod Club**

My breath caught in my throat. "What?"

"I thought I said in the instructions that only students who have taken Greek 1 should attempt the first fifteen." Mr. Brunner was still giving me that sort of amazed look. "Didn't I?"

"I don't believe so, sir."

"I will look at your paper later and see if you could actually read it, Mr. Jackson. Otherwise, I believe we are done here." The nice teacher way of saying _get out._

I walked out of the classroom, mind spinning. The first fifteen questions..in Greek? Like, Ancient Greek? How was that possible? Was there something wrong with me? Well, obviously: ADHD, dyslexia, impulsive-when I was twelve my mother made a list to send to the school counselor. But-maybe-there was something deeper than that.

_Stop thinking about it. _I entered the lunchroom, scanning the tables for anyone from any of my classes. There- Jason, Piper, and Thalia at a table with other other kids. I made my way over. "Hey guys. Can I sit here?"

"Of course!" Piper moved over some of her stuff and I sat. The boy sitting across from me looked at me In a confused manner. "Beauty Queen, who's this?"

"I'm Percy."

"He's new." Piper said, as if that explained everything.

"Ah." Okay, apparently it did. "I'm Leo. Is Percy short for something?"

I began to answer, but a girl next to him cut me off. "You're Percy Jackson?"

"Yes..." I was kind of scared that she knew my name already. What did I do now?

"I saw you swim at championships last summer. Your splits in the 800 were amazing! Plus you've got pretty eyes. Sorry, that actually sounded weird and stalkerish. I'm Hazel Levesque. Oh, you might meet my step-brother on the team! He said he would join. I think. And-"

Leo interrupted. "All right. What idiot decided it would be a good idea to give Hazel sugar?"

"Hazel's mom." muttered Hazel, holding up a distinctly empty mini-packet of M&Ms. Leo promptly ripped it out of her hand, only to turn it upside down and shake to see if there were any left.

Leo turned to me, smiling in a kind of guilty way. "Don't worry, she's not always like this. Just when she's on a sugar high. Hey, Frank, your girlfriend's hyped up. You may want to take care of that." This last comment was directed to a person behind me, who sighed loudly. "Hazel..."

Lunch ended rather quickly, and soon enough I had pulled out my schedule and checked it again. Geometry.

I went to my locker and put in the code, only to have a small paper slip flutter out at me. I picked it up and read it.

_Dear __Mr Jackson,_

_I am happy to inform you that you have been accepted into the Demigod Club, run by Mr. Brunner. This club runs every Tuesday and Thursday during lunch hour. If you are interested, the first meeting is tomorrow. _

_Thank you, _

_Luke Castellan, 'son of Hermes'_

The Demigod Club?

Near the bottom, a handwritten note said good job and that I had gotten a hundred on the World History worksheet- even on the first fifteen questions. I made a mental note to thank Thalia.

I mused on exactly what the Demigod Club might be like during Geometry, and somehow nearly managed to fall asleep (hey, isn't that what Geometry class is for?). But all I got from the name was that it was a club, it had fake demigods, and we probably talked about stuff. But that discouraging image in my head was not about to stop me from going the first meeting.

After Geometry was Chemistry which was just as bad, if not worse, except for the fact that Jason and I sat together and kept making random jokes about the multiple pictures of cats hanging up in the room and what would happen if they all came in here and started knocking things over. Near the end, he tugged a slip of paper from his binder and began folding it in different ways.

"You got one of these notes too?" I whispered.

"Yeah. Demigod Club is for the 'survivors' of freshman Greek." Jason gave me a weird look. "Why'd you get a slip then?"

"What do you mean?"

"You weren't here freshman year, genius."

"Because I'm awesome."

"No, seriously."

I shrugged. "Because I answered the Greek portion of his worksheet correctly?"

The bell rang and Jason didn't press any further, which I was grateful for, because I honestly had no clue. But now I was definitely going to the first meeting- Greek was a challenging language, right? Which meant that there was one supernova hot overachiever who would be in the meeting too.

Oh, would that be the perfect surprise. Score one Percy Jackson.

An announcement came over the loudspeaker.

"A reminder to all students on sports teams: track, cross-country and swimming start today, but the other sports start tomorrow due to field damage repairs. Please report to the bus at two forty-five for transport unless your parent is picking you up or you are driving. Thank you."

I let myself smile. I was going to tear the lane up.

**A/N Next chapter we see Percy's first swim practice with the Oakwood Owls! YAY! Sadly, however, the next update will probably be Silver and Shadows..or one of the one-shots I've been dying to write.. Thank you to my favoriters and reviewers so far I FEEL SPECIAL :) :) :)**


	4. Practice Makes Perfect

**A/N Hey guys! Sorry I died for a while…I was working on my story (original, not fanfic) so yeah. I'M BACK THOUGH! DISCLAIMER: I don't own PJO. If I did, the movies would be much awesomer. And have more Owl City/Sky Sailing/Port Blue songs in it (No offense to Swimming with Dolphins, I just haven't heard any of those songs yet) So yeah….**

**Chapter 4: Practice Makes Perfect**

Finally the school day ended and I practically raced out of the building to the dirty yellow bus waiting for me. My backpack/swim bag flapped around my shoulders and I nearly whooped with excitement. I practically leapt onto the bus and slid into the only seat not occupied by people in gold and blue track suits-which, of course was next to the Goth kid.

Okay, let me backtrack a bit. I don't actually know that he's Goth. I'm just assuming from the fact that he was wearing all black(except for his extremely dark brown aviator's jacket), a skull ring, eyeliner, and was giving me a death glare from the second I sat down. I held out my hand.

"Percy Jackson."

He takes it warily and I notice that his fingernails are (thankfully) not painted black. "Nico di Angelo."

"Oh, you're Bianca's brother?" a shadow fell across Nico's face and he turned his back to me.

I tried again. "Are you on the swim team?"

"I'm the captain of the swim team." Nico said, twisting the skull ring around his knuckle.

That was a surprise. "Who else is on the team?" I asked, looking around to see if anyone else was not wearing the track outfits. A look of faint amusement flashed across Nico's features, then was gone.

"Aside from me?"

"Yeah."

"Some common weirdo named Percy Jackson."

"Hey! I like to think I am a weirdo in a way that is uniquely my own!" I said, mock-upset. Nico grinned.

"Of course you do."

"So where's the pool at?"

"Birch High, about thirty minutes away." Nico pointed in a north-wards direction.

And so, for the next thirty minutes, Nico and I played random games on our phones, maybe commenting on the wifi quality from the bus from time to time, maybe not. In fact, I wasn't paying too much attention- I was focused on a curly blonde ponytail near the front of the bus, bobbing as it nodded to some tune shared with dark brown pixie cut to her right.

Darn.

She was wearing a track jersey.

We got to the school and the track kids and swim kids (me and Nico) went our separate ways.

"Oh, and Percy?" I looked up.

"Yeah?"

"The track practice gets out fifteen minutes earlier than us, so sometimes they come down and laugh at us…." His voice trailed off. "Just a warning."

"Okay." A feel of apprehension was growing inside of me. Were all track kids mean?

I didn't realize I had said the last part out loud.

"Not all of them are like that. Piper's nice, I guess, once you get past the makeup, and her friend Thalia-" insert Nico-has-a-crush-blush "I guess she's okay. Beckendorf's okay, Frank's okay, there are a lot of okays. But the nasty ones make themselves very obvious within the first few seconds of arrival."

"Annie one of them?"

Nico looked surprised. "Annie-Annabeth? Chase? She's a good girl. What do you mean?"

I started to tell him about my locker-neighbor-adventure when he stopped. "We're here."

The locker rooms were semi-okay, as far as locker rooms go- the only problem was the crickets. I really don't like crickets. Crick-crick-crick-crick in one corner, annoying the crap out of me. I shuddered.

Swinging my swim bag over my shoulder, I walked out to the pool- and nearly walked right back to the locker room. The starting blocks looked like they were about to break, the deck was dirty, and the diving boards were up and looked like nobody had been on them in a very, very long time.

I gulped.

So that's why the Oakwood Owls only had two swimmers.

But I stayed.

Nico brought out a practice, and we began.

* * *

He had been right. By the end, about half of the track team-including our dearest Annie- were up in the stands, whooping and catcalling and shouting, 'Hey, where's the team?'

I ignored them and kept going faster.

Finally, the dreadful fifteen minutes were over, and I pushed myself out of the pool to go get dressed. I grabbed my swim bag went to the locker rooms.

I got changed fast and discovered a door that lead me to another part of the school- a back way. I pushed the door open and in poured the sunlight, and I saw the dirty yellow school bus waiting for me- with no track kids in it. If I got there fast enough, I could get any seat I wanted.

I sprinted.

I heard footfalls behind me. "Hey Jackson, where are you going?"

Annabeth.

I put on more speed- but running wasn't my strong suit. I heard her behind me. "You can't outrun me, Jackson. Get back to the pool where you _belong_."

"Aw, you think I'm a good swimmer? Thanks Annie, I feel better about myself already." I said, my voice laced with sarcasm.

"You're better than di Angelo, I'll give you that."

Then I was falling to the dirt- it as hard dirt, too- and Annabeth gray eyes were staring into mine. I didn't believe it. Little Miss Princess tackled me from behind.

"You may want to practice your running, Jackson. Practice makes perfect, you know." was all she said, then she took off sprinting again. The rest of the track team was at her heels, laughing.

I let my head fall back against the ground. Ugh.

**A/N So? How was it? Sorry I haven't updated- I was making jewelry, and I finally got a Facebook so I've been figuring that out, and….yeah. Next update will not be very soon- my school starts next week, and I'm going to be getting a boatload of homework (yay!) (Okay, not yay..) Oh, and Disclaimer # 2: Cassie Clare came up with the line "I like to think I'm a liar in a way that's uniquely my own", so…yeah. Please read and review!**


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